Seriously, Why Should I Care About "Going Green"?
Hey guys,
Do you ever get that feeling where your chest constricts, your stomach drops, and you look around your home and wonder “How in the world am I going to get everything done?” or better yet where I was a few years ago looking at my bedroom…”What in the world happened in here? I swear it wasn’t this cluttered a week ago.”
So what would I do? My old course of action would be to go to the store and grab a few organizing bins, pull everything out of my drawers, etc. and ORGANIZE (read here: rearrange) the clutter. I played the giant game of tetris for years before realizing what I was doing.
I was trying to stifle my anxiety and stress by moving things around instead of what I really needed to do… let it go.
Here’s how:
Zero-waste grocery shopping makes shopping and putting away groceries super simple, especially if you bring your own jars. I take the jar from my tote and put it in the pantry, end of story. Now this does work with regular grocery shopping, but then you also have to deal with those pesky plastic shopping bags, not to mention food packaging, and those bright and bold labels on all the packages which is just a bunch of visual clutter. This is much more relaxing to me…
Zero-waste personal products- like toothpaste and soap bars and safety razors are much longer lasting, not to mention just easier all around. Besides not housing any plastic bottles in my bathroom cupboards or the shower stall, I also have to shop for these products much less often. Soap bars are the easiest, I simply pick up a new one from the health store whenever I run out. Toothpaste I make myself, and the razor blades last for such a long time I doubt I’ll need to order new ones online for at least another year. Which makes for less items on my to-do list, and less things to worry about.
Labels, I never realized how much visual clutter irritated me until I went zero-waste and as a result have almost zero product labels to deal with. They are always vying for our attention, saying “look at me”. Without labels I have more space both physically and mentally. I find that I am more relaxed without them.
Where before I was stressed every time I looked at the overfilled garbage can and how wasteful I was being, now when I shop zero-waste and realize exactly how little trash I’m producing it makes me proud that I’m living out my values.
